Cauliflower Steaks?

The grocery store closest to my house had cauliflower on sale this week, so I bought several of them.  When I am eating paleo I use a lot of them and thought this would be a great time to stock up, since I intended to begin a strict paleo diet every single morning this week.  It seems life ice cream got in the way of my plans, so now I have a lot of cauliflower to eat or process.  Tonight seemed like a great time to begin, but TheHub had already said he wanted to grill something.  Lightbulb moment, aided by a Google search and we settled on cauliflower steaks. (Plus grilled chicken). I found it on about 10 different blogs and all had exactly the same instructions, there are just too many to link to here.

                                                              Cauliflower Steaks

(Yes, I know I should have posted a picture of the whole slab, but I don't do photo shoots.  I just fix my plate, grab the phone to take a quick picture, then eat while everything is hot.)

Wash and drain the whole head of cauliflower, being sure to keep the green leaves intact. Set the whole cauliflower on the cutting board and make vertical slices about 3/4 inch thick from the top to the bottom and through the stem. (You will wind up with about 2 large pieces that have the stem attached. I used a small paring knife to remove most of the leaves but the stem is delicate so don't got crazy with the barbering. The rest of the head tends to crumble into florets so I saved them for another use.  I put them on a plate and zapped them in the microwave for about 2 minutes, just to start the cooking process. Next I oiled both sides of the cauliflower "slab"  with olive oil and seasoned the top side well with steak seasoning. I use Angelo's seasoning which I buy yearly at a restaurant in Panama City Beach, Florida.  If you are not going to be in NW Florida anytime soon you can order here, or use whatever steak seasoning you love.  Heat the grill to a medium heat and carefully put the cauliflower on the grill using your biggest metal spatula.  Cook for 4 minutes then flip it carefully to the other side.  You might want to add additional seasoning but I did not, mainly because I don't like much salt and the steak blend is salted.  Grill another 4 minutes and remove to a plate.  Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon finely grated pepper jack cheese then dig in.*  Since I had already thawed the chicken I had to cook it so TheHub and I split one slice between the two of us.  If I were using it as the entree I would have served 1 whole piece per person.  (If you are going to serve more than 2 people you will need additional heads of cauliflower, but you will have a boat load of bits and pieces leftover.)

This was surprisingly delicious.  I do admit I love cauliflower, but this had the lovely grilled veggie effect and the additional steak seasoning so it tasted much richer than I expected.  I can see doing this
weekly for the remainder of the summer for a light evening meal.  A side salad, bread (for non-paleos) and a little fresh fruit would make a lovely complete meal.

Confession: as it turns out I am not having a little fresh fruit with mine, since I noticed some seriously soft cherries in the fridge yesterday and I saw this at Cindi's blog yesterday.  Notice in the opening paragraph I mentioned something about ice cream being my nemesis right now, well I prefer to think of it as a message from a higher power since this was sent my way the exact day I had cooked a few cherries to prevent them from ruining. I love it when the universe speaks, don't you? (Thank you, Cindi!)

If you are looking for something to grill and want something new, low fat, and delicious this just might be for you. Be like Mikey and try it. You might like it!

* I put the cheese on the cauliflower but scraped mine off.  I thought it tasted better without it, but that is just my opinion. TheHub loved the cheese on his.